Wednesday, November 28, 2012

David: “I have sinned to God”

The last pages of the fifth perek of Shabbat contain a series of interpretations by Rabbi Shemuel bar Nahamani in the name of Rabbi Yonatan. Each of them explain why an apparent sin recorded in the Bible wasn’t technically a sin.

By the way, I find it strange that the proof for David being righteous is taken from Samuel I 18, before he was even king, let alone before the alleged sin with Batsheva in Samuel II 11. There are a number of verses after the sin that Rabbi Yonatan could have used to defend David, such as Samuel II 12, when David marries Batsheva and God approves of the child:

Rav himself, who quotes this defense, seems skeptical: “Rabbi [Yehudah ha-Nasi], who descends from David, flips the text around and interprets it in David’s merit.” Rav also goes on to call the incident the one mistake of David’s life:

All considered, I think it’s clear that David did something terrible and then sincerely repented. The message of the story is the power of repentance. We also see David’s show of character in his reaction to Natan and to his punishment.

What’s amazing to me is how the Bible portrays David’s sin so harshly. He impregnates Uriyyah’s wife, tries to pass off Uriyyah as the father, and then sends Uriyyah to the front line to be killed. What an abuse of the king’s power, in addition to being an injustice to Uriyyah and Batsheva.

This story is told of the central hero of Samuel and the namesake of Judea's dynasty. In any other ancient culture, his mistakes would be whitewashed or omitted. Moreover, in any other ancient culture, such abuse of the king’s power would be considered par for the course, let alone a grave sin.